


Gentlemen Take Polaroids

by shellface



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Drabble Collection, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M, Remembrance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3188531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellface/pseuds/shellface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus remembers Alexander, and the life they had together. Drabble collection</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just Us

“You're thinking about dad,” Max says quietly, settling down next to him on the roof, “aren't you?”

Magnus blows a small cloud of smoke, turning his finger in a circle. The cloud becomes a rune;  _fearless_ . “I think about him a lot,” he tells his son, not quite able to look him in the eyes. “You know that.”

There has been time enough for the grief to soften – for the sharpness of the pain to dull – but it has not been long enough for him to look back on the lifetime they shared without feeling that heartbreaking longing for something,  _someone_ , he can never have again.

He stubs his cigarette out, perhaps a little more forcefully than he intended.

“Yeah,” Max agrees, sounding uncharacteristically serious. He's always been a mischievous sort of person, something Alec blamed entirely – unfairly, in his opinion – on Magnus. “But you've been all...quiet lately,” he shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, you haven't been wearing as much glitter as usual.”

Alec would have found that funny, he thinks – that their son measures how happy he is by the amount of glitter on his person. Or he would have just been faintly horrified. Something in between. “ The first time I met your dad, it was when he came to a party I held for my cat,” he crosses his arms, looking out at the cityscape in front of him.

Max nods. He's heard this story before. “Yeah...”

“He was my type.” He smiles, a little wistfully, and Max tries not to look disturbed by the idea of his parents being romantic. “Black hair, those eyes – and those abs, not that I saw them then, you understand.” He pauses for a second. “That was on the first date.”

Max stares up at the sky, pleading with whatever deity is up there to save him. He's not exactly scandalised – you don't have Magnus Bane for a parent, and end up easily offended – but it's not like he  _wants_ to think about  his parents getting it on .

“I miss him too,” Max wraps his arms around his knees. “I miss him and Eva,” he hunches his shoulders. “They're my family too.”

They speak of them as if they're still around, although it has been more than hundred years since they last saw  either of their faces .  Their father and lover, sister and daughter have been lost forever, and yet  they have not aged – have not visibly changed. No mundane would ever believe he was Max's father now, even if he is adopted.

 


	2. Lightwood Ring

“Why do you have a Lightwood ring?” The young shadowhunter asks, pinched face confrontational. “ _You're_ not a Lightwood.”

Magnus turns to the boy – because that's what he is; he's clearly not over eighteen. “I was,” he says quietly, his tone almost angry. He wants to say  _I am_ , but he's not anymore. He never really was,  if he's honest . Magnus Lightwood didn't really work, and besides, Alec had always wanted him to keep his surname.

“ _You chose it,_ ” he'd said, after one night, tangled in each other's arms, “ _you should keep it._ ”

“You're a warlock,” the boy says stubbornly, eyes flashing. “You can't be a Lightwood.”

He sighs. “You're boring me,” he says loftily. “I do not need to explain my life choices to a  _child_ ,” he murmurs, voice hard. The boy glances at his latest, glittery get-up, as if insinuating that he really does.

“Father,” a familiar voice behind him, urgent and slightly stressed, causes him to whip himself around, long coat flapping in the wind. “There were Raum demons. Someone's been poisoned.”

“ _Father_?” The irritating boy questions, looking baffled. “I thought warlocks couldn't have children.”

Magnus massages his temples wearily. “ There are other ways to become a parent.” He snaps his fingers, ignoring the  flabbergasted look on the idiot boy 's face as he finds he cannot speak, and turns  to  look at his son . “You couldn't have helped them?” He asks, a little amused.

Max shrugs. “You're better at this sort of thing. Must be your age,” he grins, baring pointed teeth.

“Hmm,” he snorts, deciding to leave it for the moment, “lead the way, _son_ ,” he calls mockingly.

 

 


	3. My Girl

Max wasn't his only child. He was the first.  But his daughter – his beautiful, mortal daughter – had been lost to him years ago.

She'd only been thirty-five. Too young to die. Too young to leave him and Alexander. He'd never wanted Alec to have that experience – to lose his child. He'd wanted to save him that pain, as he could not save it for himself.

It had been a relief, when she'd said – hesitantly, carefully – that she didn't want to ascend. She'll be safe, he'd thought. She'll live as normal a life as she can have.

Of course, the painful, excruciating irony was that she'd been killed by a demon. Lost in the crossfire of a battle she should never have been a part of. Her tattoos – her beautiful, intricate tattoos – were not runes; fast reflexes could not save her, even if she had been taught to defend herself.

It was a crueller pain than losing Alec. His children grew older, wiser, and yet, further apart from him. It was hard to explain just _why_ you looked  younger than your child.

And when she died – because despite the circumstances, she had to, and he did not begrudge her that – it had been a father's loss he had felt. A parent saw the future in their child; the continuation of their genes in another generation. But instead, she had crumbled away and left him in the future, not quite past or present. It might not have been his genes that brought her to life, but she was still his child, and it was still the promise of a future he lost.

Of course, he'd had his grandchildren. He had adored them too. But again, the cycle carried on, and eventually he learned it was easier to walk away – easier to distance himself from those who were part of the family he had created with Alexander.

And things changed. Her dark, penetrating eyes disappeared; her descendants began to look less and less like her. Slowly, hideously, the memory began to fade until it wasn't quite as sharp as it had once been.

It was like losing her all over again.

 


	4. Strangelove

The years in which Alexander began to look older than him had come slowly, almost unnoticed. It was not that one day, he looked up, and noticed in surprise that his husband now looked old enough to be his father. It was more that people reacted to them differently, even as he looked at him with that slow, sexy smile, and knew – as he always had – that this man was _his_ , his Alexander.

He  had joked that Alexander was his sugar daddy, even as Alec rolled his eyes. It was a familiar, private joke, but one that had always caused Alec to tense up if someone else made it. He didn't like other people – even his beloved family – poking fun at his relationship, at his age. He had always been so very conscious that he was the oldest out of all of them – except for Magnus, of course, who would never look his true age.

It mattered, in the way that impending death always mattered – but it didn't change his feelings. He'd never really understood before, when Tessa had explained that all she saw was  _Will_ – and later, Jem – when she looked at her ageing husband. Love could be fickle, even shallow – and Magnus was painfully aware that, at times, he was both of those things – but in this case, it had been a beautiful kind of faith. Not blind faith – he was perfectly aware of who Alec was – and not religious fervour (Magnus had never really understood the belief in some unseen patriarch who was  _so much better than everyone else_ ) – just...happiness.

And that was what Alec – and their family – had brought him. So even when they walked out together – the flamboyantly dressed young man, and the sober forty-something – he had felt no shame, no embarrassment. They were Magnus and Alec; Alec and Magnus. He could not take his immortality away, and nor would he ever burden Alec with it, for he understood the loneliness of time, and – as always – he only ever wanted to spare Alec that pain. So all they had were the years that Alec was allowed.

It wasn't enough – could never  _truly_ be enough – but he would never regret the time he spent with Alexander, the happiness, the family they had raised. And though sometimes, he sat down and realised he could not quite remember Alec's smile, or the particular shade of red he blushed, he still remembered  _him_ .

And he clung to that, as he clung to all of his memories. They said that great age tended to turn warlocks mad, and while he was a little afraid of that, he was more afraid of losing his memories, for there could be nothing worse than forgetting the way Alec had thrown his head back, and laughed – with such a n a typical  loss of self-consciousness – at their children's sarcasm, the way he had pulled him close with such clumsy tenderness when they first kissed – the way he  _had_ loved.

“Oh, my Alec,” he murmured, wistful as only someone who has loved and lost too many times could be. “My Alec.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I appear to be naming all my fics on here after eighties songs. This one's by Japan. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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